As well as tasting individual spices, we created a variety of blends from different countries and then tasted them in either applesauce, butternut squash or sweet potato - as vehicles for the spice, so you could get the true flavors.

Tasting stations at the ready!

The key spices we focused on were

cinnamon - great for diabetes

turmeric - anti-cancer and anti- inflammatory activity

black cumin - immune system boosting

cloves - toothache, mosquito repellent, anti-infection

cocoa - great source of flavonols which increase nitric oxide production, and help heart health

Plus we looked at those spices that can affect the Cancer "Master Switch" - NFkB

The blends we made we:

Chai tea - India - we actually made a tea-less version

La Kama from North Africa

Garam Masala - India

Golden Milk -India

Panch Phoron - India

Chinese five spice - China

Colombo Powder - Latin America

Quatre Epices - France

Hot Chocolate - Mexican

We then ended up with a chocolate tasting of 6 chocolates with cocoa contents of >75%. I'll tell you more about that another day!

It was a great class. People really started to focus on tasting carefully and identifying different flavor and whether spices predominated or harmonized.